The Future of Serialized Dramas

It's been an awesome couple of decades for television, hasn't it? The medium just seems to get better and better every year. As AV Club is wont to say (not to mention everyone at the most recent Emmys) we really are in a Golden Age of Television. As far as I'm concerned, it can only get better from here.

I have a lot of love for the serial drama, a genre that really has come into its own in the last 10 years or so. While earlier shows like Twin Peaks and X-Files helped paved the way for its foundation, it's only when you get to shows like Alias, 24, and Lost that you really start to see it take off. I think I love it because of the balance it achieves - and that it reaches new heights that no one in the scorn of the 80s and 90s possibly yet realized for the credibility of the form as a unique storytelling device. In my own head, as I picture things of that contest between character and concept, I love the serial drama for finding that perfect balance in between - incorporating both, with all their strengths, not succumbing to their weaknesses, not leaning too far in one direction or another.

There have been a few real gems that shine to have come out just out the last five years or so. The Mad Mens and the Breaking Bads. Even those who only engage in procedurals for their consumption have heard of these shows - because they're the ones that make a difference; change the landscape; challenge the form.

But what I'm most curious is in the wake of Lost's success - what I would argue is the most important show to have come out of the 2000-2010 decade. Note that I said "most important" not "best." Overall, I think Lost is a fantastic show - but for me, this is a quantitative concern as much as it is qualitative. The show's success can measured in no small part by the number of spawned entities which clearly want to be the next Lost. Like Revolution, Once Upon a Time, V, and Flash Forward. A diverse cast of characters, grand ambitions with the narrative, heavy concepts (like fairy tales and aliens and mass-blackouts), attempts at philosophical disagreements personified by the differing characters, and a story not necessarily told in a linear fashion

Lost was a kind of lightning-in-a-bottle. It was a mainstream hit, a pop culture touchstone, and a drama that crossed so many different genres and philosophies, as well as completely reshaping the potential for traditional narrative on television. An attention-grabbing concept, headlined by a stellar cast, a grand pilot, and heavy emphasis on characters. And the weirder it got, the more mysteries we learned, the more we wanted to know. In addition, who would've ever thought that in addition to flashing back, you can also flash forward - who would've ever thought what storytelling potential that demonstrates, dangling hints of future events in such a fashion while simultaneously following the present-day path to get there. Who would've ever thought just how non-linear a path that storytelling on television can follow, if executed well.

But none of these other shows have yet to succeed. Not really. Though some have had modest ratings success (and even a spinoff in the case of Once Upon a Time) none of have made that kind of cultural impact. Not the way that Lost did. None of them yet represent the future of the serialized drama. And there are a few reasons why.

Here's one comparison that I would make. The Simpsons debuted on American television in the late 80s/early 90s, and it was very, very different. It was so different, America didn't initially know what to make of it, largely took offense at it, and sneered at its off-putting, seemingly offensive brand of humor that not only shattered the norm of what we perceived about comedies and cartoons on television, but also frequently mocked them.

The reasons why for this were because American television, prior to this point, had yet to see any true post-modernism (though it was all over film in the 70s and 80s, and of course, Monty Python gave us all the post-modern goodness). The constant self-aware jokes, and the persistent desire to homage other texts, frequently pointing to them and mocking them (and how they tell their stories) or incorporating the mimicry to mock themselves. It's a part of the style - you mock everything, including the audience. And it's entirely reliant not only on everything that's come before, but an audience that is well-versed in everything that's come before. (It must also be said that we can thank The Simpsons in no small part for the rise of meta.)

Comedies on television remained largely the same in spite of this - at least throughout the remainder of the 90s. A lot of the biggest hits were still the traditional audience-based four-camera sitcom, like Friends, Fraiser, Home Improvement, Married With Children, and Full House; and the home-viewing audiences loved it. The Simpsons didn't change anything immediately. There were still too many people hating it to fully understand.

But come the 2000s, and soon the landscape alters. We get shows like Scrubs, Arrested Development, and 30 Rock, just to name a few. In addition to the four-camera sitcom, television now has a single-camera sitcom. And oftentimes it's based around the non-sequiter, post-modern style first seen in The Simpsons. It took almost ten years, but other writers in Hollywood caught onto the humor, the style, and the revolution of an entire television genre took place. Four-camera sitcoms still exist, with varying degrees of success, but it now has healthy competition from completely different styles.

It took years for anyone to figure out how to take the next step into moving television comedy forward after The Simpsons. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if it's another five to ten years before anyone truly finds a way to continue on the legacy of Lost - at least in a legitimate, viable way that isn't based solely around borrowing heavily from Lost's basic narrative style.

JJ Abrams did an interview with IGN a few weeks ago discussing the upcoming Almost Human, and he talked somewhat about this discussion. Specifically, about the marriage of procedural and serialized drama, something that he has attempted more than once in recent years (including Fringe and Undercovers). But I actually disagree with the attempts, even though I understand where it's coming from. Producers want tv series to appeal to a wide range of people to in order to get healthy ratings - and they don't want a subset of the population to feel alienated from a tv series that gets bogged down in complex mythology (as serialized dramas are wont to do).

Unfortunately, it means playing to a multitude of crowds. Undercovers failed as an experiment, because people who don't enjoyed serialized television thought it was going to be too complicated to follow; and people who do learned that it was stand-alone procedural style, and didn't even bother. Fringe suffered the same, and only survived by the skin of its teeth (and the grace of the Fox network). It tried so hard to marry the two in a way that appealed to different audiences that it had a hard time pinning down one solid group of fans; and ultimately, as it moved further and further into its complicated conceptuals, it eventually embraced the form and went full serialized drama. Because it wasn't going to work in the long-term with stand-alone episodes anyway.

You can't make everyone happy here. And trying to do so always brings with it great risk Someone somewhere has to be left out in the cold.

Procedurals serve an important purpose - they sustain the industry. They're like the AAA games and tentpole movies of television. They get consistently big ratings, enough so that studios feel they can take risk on smaller projects - the kind that might not appeal to everyone. But it's important to remember that procedurals provide the financial viability - serialized provide the creative. No one looks back at the Law and Orders and remembers how they changed the landscape of television. The two genres don't work in sync because they're achieving different goals, and in the process, appealing to different crowds.

And what will be the future of the form? I wish I could say for certain. I don't believe any of the Lost wanna-bes are anywhere near reaching the next step, particularly given what it accomplished. But just their mere existence is gratifying in it of itself, even when they don't succeed; it means that people are interested - both the financial backers, and the creative talent. They don't just want to be Lost - they want to be the next step after Lost. And even if they don't achieve that goal themselves, they still provide an important stone on the path.